Rating: 
Summary: A Fresh Point of View
Review: The creators of the Motherpeace tarot deck have rethought the traditional (and patriarchal) images of earlier tarot desks, replacing the images with multicultural, goddess-centered images. Since "Motherpeace" was my first tarot set and I have spent little time using more traditional decks, I may not be able to accurately describe what images have changed. Instead of the traditional royalty hierarchy--King, Queen, etc., Motherpeace portrays them as Priest and Priestess. Although the desk retains the more-common medieval theme for the Cups suit, images from other cultures appear on the other suits: African (Wands), Navajo (Discs), and Greco-Roman (Swords).After using these cards in readings for more than 10 years, the images have become part of how I view certain situations. For instance, the Eight of Discs, featuring a very pregnant woman sitting in a patch of watermelons, is how I now visualize the experience of waiting, sometimes impatiently, for something to come to fruition. Depicting "Strength" as the Irish Goddess Brigid sitting among animals has caused me to rethink what true strength means--groundedness--not brute force. The images are so intricately drawn that a regular reader always will discover new details and new perspectives. When I started reading tarot cards, I wasn't looking for something to predict the future. I approached the cards as an opportunity to use guided imagery to reflect on my life and my future. Over the years, however, I have experienced some extremely odd coincidences, and now associate certain cards with certain events. The companion book provides an excellent discussion about the inspiration for the images, and for the most part, a good sense of the meaning behind the images. Eventually, once one has used the cards for a while, the images can drive the reading, without constant referral to the guidebook. One drawback of the companion book is that it doesn't provide a variety of readings. For that, I would suggest "Tarot for Yourself."
Rating: 
Summary: not necessarily the best
Review: The Motherpeace Tarot, as some have stated, has not aged well. The hyper-feminist views expressed in the book, and to a lesser extent in the deck, turn off a lot of people, both women and men. The sentiment that "if women ruled the world, things would be better," is nice, but it is not borne out by the careers of women like Margaret Thatcher or Elizabeth Dole. However, if someone agrees with the political views of this deck, it may work for them. But putting aside the politics, the problems I have with this deck are many. The drawings are crude and occasionally clumsy. More important to me than anything else is the way the symbolism diverges dramatically from the traditional Tarot symbolism. This is where I think this deck falls short for me. The "traditional" symbolism of the Tarot is there for a purpose, and it's part of what makes the cards useful for divination. If you change the symbolism radically, you are really not using a Tarot deck any more; you are using a deck of cards to perform divination, but you are not using the Tarot. The traditional tarot symbolism is important because it is based on archetypes, which work with the unconscious mind to contact the Divine and produce a reading, which is then interpreted with the conscious mind. If you introduce a new set of images there is no guarantee that this deck will relate to the subconscious archetypes in the human mind, and no guarantee that you will be able to make contact with the Divine in order to produce a relevant reading. I am told that people have used this deck with some success, and I am sure it is possible. For me, however, this deck violates the traditional Tarot symbolism too much to be useful. I feel that anyone considering buying this deck needs to keep that in mind.
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